Wreo’s Wrasslin’ Wramblog

So, I like professional wrestling. You may already know this. Here’s the thing about pro graps, or rasslin’, or whatever you call it: there is something for everyone. If you don’t like the cookie-cutter match-type, or drama-laden story-lines of the WWE, there is something for you. There is character-driven WWE, masked two-out-three-falls lucha libre, hard-hitting puroresu, the technical wizardry of catch wrestling, and many more. There are family-friendly independents, and bloody and violent independents. There is something for your particular tastes.

I normally talk about WWE, and they have a lot of new story-lines and a lot of set-up this week. We’ll get to that Friday, but today we have a little something different. I’m going to start shining a little light on the little guys. Every Wednesday, I’ll give you a brief rundown of some of the other promotions.

USA-

CHIKARA

CHIKARA is a unique promotion. For the longest time, it was just a tag-team promotion, going nearly ten years without a singles champion. They had a regular tag-team championship, a trios (teams of three) championship, a tournament, and a cup. Once winning any of the four, all but the tournament title was defended year-round. The Young Lions Cup title was defended until the next cup the following year.

The style is a very big blend of Mexican lucha libre and Japanese puroresu, with masks and weird gimmicks alike. CHIKARA also used to form relations with many of the Japanese joshi promotions, bringing a lot of Japanese women to the States. As a matter of fact, Team Sendai Girls (Cassandra Miyagi, Dash Chisako, and Meiko Satomura) is the reigning King of Trios.

Champions:

Grand Championship: Juan Francisco de Cornoado

Campeonatos de Parejas: Cornelius Crummels and Sonny Defarge

Young Lions Cup: Wani

Premier Event:

King of Trios.

Streaming:

Chikaratopia

Europe-

PROGRESS

PROGRESS is a fun little guy of a wrestling promotion. Hailing out of their headquarters in London, and founded by wrestling promoter Jim Smallman, and his agent Jon Briley. They filled a void: not of lot of ‘strong style’ wrestling in Europe, and not a lot of local wrestling shows in London proper. And it six years, they have really become one of Europe’s most popular professional wrestling products.

Jimmy Havoc was the initial star, carrying the promotion from a small London territory, to a national and continental power. These days, a lot of WWE-connected wrestlers partake in PROGRESS shows. The stable of British Strong Style (Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate, and Trent Seven) are dominating the title scene, with guys like Mark Andrews and Matt Riddle (Bro!) making names for themselves there recently as well.

As a matter of fact, their Super Strong Style 16 last year had five WWE-contracted wrestlers in the 16-man field.

If you want something different than WWE, but with slightly similar production values and raucous crowds, PROGRESS is your place.

They don’t have a premier yearly event, and all of their big events are called ‘Chapters’. They have a couple of tournaments, with the yearly major one being Super Strong Style 16; with the winner getting a title match.